Ricotta-Stuffed French Toast

Mother's Day, and the holiday arrives this year with a tenderness it has not had before — the tenderness of a woman who has been writing a cookbook about her mother for three months and who has, in the writing, discovered things about the mother she thought she knew completely. The discovery is this: Mama's cooking was never about the food. It was about the saying. Every dish was a sentence. Every meal was a paragraph. Every holiday dinner was a chapter in a book that Mama was writing with her hands instead of her pen, and the book was the family, and the family was the audience, and the audience was fed.

James gave me a leather-bound edition of MFK Fisher's "The Art of Eating" — the food writer I have been studying for the cookbook, the woman who wrote about food the way I want to write about food: as if the eating were the living, as if the cooking were the thinking, as if the kitchen were the page. The gift was the most James gift possible: a book, chosen with precision, given with love, received with the particular gratitude of a woman who considers a well-chosen book the highest form of attention.

Carrie sent flowers from Atlanta — wildflowers, not roses, because Carrie considers roses conventional and wildflowers honest, and honesty is Carrie's aesthetic. The card said: "For the woman who taught me that the roux is a metaphor." The sentence made me laugh and cry simultaneously, which is the correct response to a daughter who has understood you completely and who has expressed the understanding in nine words.

Mama ate the Mother's Day brunch I made — shrimp and grits, biscuits, fruit, coffee — and she ate with the quiet pleasure of a woman who is being fed by someone she trusts, and the trust was the Mother's Day, because the trust of a mother for the daughter who feeds her is the circle completed, the giving and the receiving reversed, the child become the parent and the parent become the child, and the becoming is the love.

The shrimp and grits were the centerpiece, but it was the biscuits and the fruit and the way Mama sat quietly at the table — content, trusting, fed — that I keep returning to. If I were to do it again, or if you are planning your own version of this circle-completing brunch, I would add this ricotta-stuffed French toast to the spread: it has the same quality of something made with care, something that takes an ordinary thing and fills it with more than expected, which is exactly what a mother does, and exactly what we owe her in return.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

8 thick slices brioche or challah bread (about 1-inch thick)
1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons powdered sugar, plus more for serving
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, divided
1 teaspoon lemon zest
3 large eggs
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
Fresh berries and warm maple syrup, for serving

Instructions

Make the filling. In a small bowl, stir together the ricotta, powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, and lemon zest until smooth and well combined. Set aside.
Assemble the sandwiches. Spread a generous 2 tablespoons of the ricotta mixture onto one side of four bread slices. Top each with a second slice of bread, pressing gently to seal into a sandwich.
Prepare the custard. In a shallow bowl or baking dish, whisk together the eggs, milk, cinnamon, salt, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon vanilla until fully combined.
Soak the bread. Working one at a time, dip each stuffed sandwich into the custard, letting it soak for about 20 to 30 seconds per side. The bread should absorb the egg mixture without becoming soggy.
Cook the French toast. Heat 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet or griddle over medium heat. When the butter foams and subsides, add two stuffed sandwiches. Cook until deep golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a wire rack and repeat with remaining butter and sandwiches.
Serve. Dust with powdered sugar, top with fresh berries, and serve immediately with warm maple syrup alongside.

Nutrition (per serving)

Ricotta-Stuffed French Toast — The Brunch That Completed the Circle